The Adobe Brick and the Mould of Mud
The Adobe Brick and the Mould of Mud — an invention story. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder Inventions.
Page 1
Three days of rain had soaked the mound soft, and on the fourth morning the edge wall gave up. It did not fall so much as slump, sideways and slow, like porridge sliding off a tilted bowl. A ladder taller than two grown men went tumbling end over end, bouncing off one rooftop, then another, then another, clattering across four flat mud roofs before it crashed down almost at Suba's bare feet. Right behind it came a woven basket of wet mud lumps, spilling grey gobbets everywhere as it bounced. Suba shrieked and scrambled backward, nearly tripping over a drying rack, while Nene came hurrying across the rooftops, her long spotted cloak flapping, grabbing Suba's arm and hauling her clear just as a last clod thumped down where she'd been standing. Smoke curled lazily from the twin peaks on the horizon, indifferent to the small chaos below. Suba stared at the ruined wall, then at the ladder, then, slowly, began to grin.
Page 2
The grey clay pit sat beside the reed beds, wide as a threshing floor and churned soft by rain. Suba waded in to her shins, then her knees, stomping chopped straw into the clay with both feet, feeling it hiss and suck between her toes. She laughed as it climbed higher, but the clay did not let go. She pulled one leg, then the other, and sank deeper instead, cold mud closing over her knees like a fist. "Nene! I'm stuck!" she shouted, flailing her arms. Nene came striding through the reeds, dropped to her knees at the pit's edge, and grabbed both of Suba's wrists in her big knuckly hands. She hauled backward, boots slipping, until Suba popped free with a wet gulp and tumbled onto the bank, clay sheeting off her shins. Something came up with her — a waterlogged wooden plank, dragged loose from the suck below, dripping and grey. Suba sat up, turned it over in her hands, and grinned at its straight edges. "Nene, look — if I had four of these, I could pen the mud right where I want it!"
Page 3
Up in the juniper grove the air smelled sharp and green, and Nene knelt over a fallen trunk as long as three adults laid head to toe. She drove a stone wedge into its end with a wooden mallet, slamming again and again until the wood groaned and split clean down its length. 'Four planks, Suba, straight ones,' she said, hauling the pieces apart with her huge sap-stained hands. Suba knelt to peg the first corner, pressing a sharpened dowel through two planks to make an open-bottomed box. But the fifth plank, still loose, slid from the pile and caught the slope. It hissed away down the loose black scree, bouncing and skittering. Suba scrambled after it on hands and feet, sliding half a step for every step gained, scattering black stone chips behind her. Fifty paces down she finally threw herself flat across the plank, pinning it with her whole small body before it reached the thorn bushes below. She dragged it back up, scraped and grinning, into Nene's waiting arms.
Page 4
The salt shore stretched flat and blinding, crusted white like frost under the sun. Suba knelt and knocked the wooden mould against her knee, and a fresh brick slid free onto the glittering ground to join the long rows already drying, knee-high mounds of them stretching away toward the caravan's tents. She was turning out the hundredth brick when a braying donkey, loose from its tether, barged straight through a finished row, scattering them like scattered teeth. Bricks toppled, one after another, and the last one bounced off the stack and sailed through the air. A lanky boy Suba had never seen before dove flat across the salt, curly hair flying, and caught it against his chest before it struck the ground. He scrambled up grinning, brushing salt from his bare shoulders. Nene came stooping over fast, grabbed the donkey's rope, and hauled it still. Then she took the wooden mould in her big knuckly hands and pressed it firmly into Suba's arms, holding her there a long moment before stepping back as the caravan began to creak and pull away, waving with both huge hands until she was only a thin pale shape on the white shore.
Page 5
The donkeys splashed into the Euphrates, water rising past their knees, then past Suba's waist as she clung to the loaded pannier. Halfway across, the leather strap snapped with a crack like a dry twig. The wooden mould tumbled free, hit the brown water with a slap, and spun away downstream, bobbing between the ripples. Suba shrieked and lunged, but the current was already pulling it past her reaching fingers. Zimri didn't wait — he shoved past the donkey, shoving water aside with both arms, legs churning hard toward a low sandbar jutting into the river. He scrambled onto it, planted his feet in the wet sand, and stretched out one leg just as the mould swept close, hooking it neatly against his ankle before it could slide past into deeper water. Suba floundered after him, grabbed the back of his woven belt, and hauled herself up onto the sandbar beside him, gasping and dripping. Together they dragged the mould up out of the current, clutching it between them like something precious rescued from drowning.
Page 6
The ramp up the Eanna platform was taller than three men stacked head to foot, a crooked path of planks and packed earth zigzagging up the mudbrick mound. Suba set the wooden mould flat on her head, balancing it with both hands, and started climbing, her bare feet gripping the rough planks. Zimri scrambled up behind her, ready to catch her if she slipped. Near the top, the builders' new wall bulged outward like a belly full of water. Suba hauled the mould down and pressed it against the wall's edge. "See? Your bricks are too wet, too soon stacked!" she shouted. At that exact moment, a stack of half-dry bricks beside them groaned, sagged, and slithered down the slope in a slow grey avalanche, dust puffing up where they tumbled. Zimri lunged sideways and grabbed Suba's arm, dragging her back from the sliding bricks just as they crashed past. "Hold on!" he yelled, bracing his feet against a plank to keep them both standing.
Page 7
The stone quay at Memphis was stacked higher than a grown man with sacks of chopped straw, waiting to be swung ashore from the reed boats below. Zimri hauled on the rope with both hands, his feet braced against a mooring post nearly as tall as his waist, and the sack rose, swinging — then caught the post's edge and burst open with a ragged tearing sound. Chopped straw sprayed out in a golden cloud, swirling across the quay and tumbling down the wide stone steps toward the river. Suba threw her arms out as if she could hug the whole cloud back, but it slipped past her fingers. A shaved-headed girl with a palette knocking at her hip came running down the steps two at a time, scooping great armfuls of straw against her chest before the wind could carry it into the water. Zimri dropped the torn sack and scrambled after her, stamping his sandals down on drifting clumps to pin them before they blew off the edge. Suba gathered what settled near her bare feet, packing it tight into the empty basket.
Page 8
A crack split the canal bank, and brown water burst through in a hissing sheet, racing straight for the drying rows. Suba dropped the mould and screamed, "The bricks! The water's coming!" Zimri grabbed a fresh brick, still damp from turning out, and slammed it down across the little gully, heel-first into the mud. Nefret dropped her palette on a dry stack and ran to scoop more bricks into her arms, hauling them two at a time. Suba knelt and packed wet clay into the gaps with both hands, smearing it fast to seal the joints before the water found them. Zimri waded calf-deep, laying brick after brick in a crooked knee-high line, grunting with each slap of mud. The water pushed and found a gap, and Nefret threw herself against the new wall, bracing it with her shoulder until Suba packed it tight again. Brick by brick the dam grew taller than the flood, and the water curled away sideways into the old ditch, leaving the drying rows safe and dry under the pale cliffs.
Page 9
The tomb-chapel cut into the hillside glows with half-finished paint, and the wall-painter balances high on a plank scaffold, copying the worn juniper mould that Zimri holds up for him row by row. Zimri's lanky arms strain as he lifts the mould higher so the painter can see the peg-joints clearly, calling directions up through the dust. Suba climbs halfway up the scaffold poles herself, pointing at each stage painted so far — digging, treading, moulding, turning out, drying, carrying — checking none are missed. Nefret crouches below with her palette ready, grinding red ochre for the painter's pot. Suddenly the pot tips off the plank edge, tumbling down through the air, and Nefret flings her arms wide and catches it hard against her chest, red powder puffing up over her white linen shift. The painter freezes mid-stroke, peering down in alarm, then laughs with relief when he sees the pot safe in her arms. Zimri whoops and nearly drops the mould himself, catching it just in time against his hip.
Page 10
The ramp climbs higher than three men stacked head to foot, its mudbrick steps worn smooth by hundreds of hauling feet, and Zimri scrambles up the last stretch with the old juniper mould clamped against his chest, its planks grey and splitting after a whole world of travel. He slams it down on the parapet, panting, lapis bead swinging at his throat. Nefret drops to her knees beside him and unrolls a long papyrus sheet, smoothing it flat with both palms so the wind cannot snatch it, pointing to the last drawing on it. Suba scoops a final lump of wet clay from the basket, rams it into the mould with both small fists, and tips it out onto the top course of the wall. Before it can firm, she presses her whole hand into the soft grey face and holds it there, counting under her breath, as the sun breaks over the river and lights up every sail on the water below.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder Inventions
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